Monday, March 25, 2013

[Above: Some of the judges of the First Criminal Section hearing another recent case, with other sections behind]

We believe the woman in the image is PIERA MARIA SEVERINA CAPRIOGLIO who is the lead judge (rapporteur) for the case.

Dr Caprioglio is known as a legal expert and hardliner on sex crimes. There is a total of five judges, and the president of the First Section is on the panel. This is unprecedented judicial firepower for a murder case, and seems to be a response to the enormous damage done by the Curt Knox/David Marriott campaign. No American political leader is going to second-guess this.

We are anticipating tweets and news reports out of Italy throughout the day. Andrea Vogt is one who is tweeting from the court. Follow her here.

First report:

@andreavogt #amandaknox discussions starting now in cassation court in Rome. Judge Caprioglio is summarizing the case.

Second report

@andreavogt Procuratore Generale Riello now taking the floor in #amandaknox case, after a 90-minute review of all the arguments.

[Deputy Chief Prosecutor Luigi Riello [image below] holds the same rank that Dr Galati held before he transferred to Perugia to be chief prosecutor there.]

Third report

@andreavogt PG Riello: I believe the judges [Hellmann and Zanetti] lost their way. There are elements that were absolutely not taken into consideration.

In trial and first appeal the defenses never tried to pin it all on Guede - because Cassation itself has ruled there was more than one perp.

*******

Added: Fly By Night on PMF thinks (ex MP - she lost her seat] Bongiorno may be talking about the Nike shoe print in Meredith’s room. That was not exactly a smoking gun. There were dozens of evidence points more incriminating to RS.

Thank you very much for the updates. I couldn’t wait to get home from work to read up on what’s been going on. Fingers crossed that the decision will be in Meredith’s favor and warm thoughts for the Kercher family.

ROME - The [Deputy Prosecutor General] of the Supreme Court has asked to cancel the acquittal of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox for the murder of Meredith Kercher, the British student murdered in Perugia on the night between the 1st and 2nd November 2007. Despite being sentenced to 25 to 26 years in prison in the first instance, the two were acquitted on appeal, getting back their freedom after almost four years in prison.

“The judgment of the Court of Appeal of Perugia” which acquitted Knox and Sollecito “is a rare concentration of violations of law and logic and I believe it should be canceled” stressed the PG of the Supreme Court Luigi Riello, in the closing argument at the end of the hearing on the appeal submitted by the Prosecutor General of Perugia [Galati] against the acquittal. The verdict of the Supreme Court is expected in the evening.

Amanda and Raffaele were not in the courtroom. He is studying in Verona, she is in Seattle. While the Kercher family stayed in London, where Meredith is buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

The English student, who in 2007 had moved to Perugia to study, was fatally stabbed in her throat with a knife, while in her room in a rented house in Via della Pergola. Police investigations coordinated by Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini led to the arrest, on November 6, of Sollecito and his girlfriend at the time, Amanda Knox, who was Kercher’s roommate. Patrick Lumumba also went in prison, he was said to be involved in the statements of the American woman, but then he was proven totally innocent of the charges and later released and acquitted.

The investigation led instead to Rudy Guede, framed by an imprint of his bloody hand beside the body. Arrested in Germany where he had fled, he was sentenced to a 16-year term with abbreviated trial, a sentence which became definitive and [Guede] is now serving in the prison at Viterbo. Sollecito and Knox have always maintained their innocence.

The second-instance judgment was appealed to the Supreme Court by the Procurator General of Perugia. An action of a hundred pages was signed by the Chief Prosecutor Giovanni Galati and deputy Giancarlo Costagliola, seeking the annulment of the acquittals and sending the case back for new judgement. So did the lawyers for the Kercher family, they too have appealed against the acquittal of the two former lovebirds. The Supreme Court will also decide on the recourse by of the defense of the American woman Knox against her three years sentenced, already served, for the Lumumba calunnia.

“In this process the trial court has lost its compass” Riello argued in his speech, referring to the appeal ruling that acquitted Sollecito and Knox. According to the PG, the second degree collegium [appeal court] has “shattered the circumstantial evidence” talking about a “breaking into pieces” of them. Riello then spoke of a “fair amount of snobbery” of the appellate judges as they “trivialized” the verdict of the trial court of first instance “reducing it to only four reasons.” He then called the calunnia committed by Knox Patrick against Lumumba a “key point”.

“To blame everything on “messy bunglers” of the Scientific Police - who with all due respect are not playing with toy chemistry sets, but a highly specialized department - this is not reasonable” said Riello during his speech. The PG has anyway recalled that the same experts of appeal have ruled out that contamination could have taken place within the laboratory. Riello added that genetic tests were performed under the formal guarantees of “unrepeatable tests” and thus “[legally] totally similar to a judge appointed expert report “.

That MK was not a distilled white line was certainly went against her.

Italians never had a colony, but Italy has hosted thousands of blacks in recent times. Even politicians are grumpy about that.

I never saw any clear indication about racial bias in AK (except perhaps a couple of bad-taste jokes about jews) and the British friends of MK are rightly tight-lipped about the race. It is still a taboo for the British.

Both race and poverty went against the black-boy.

But I was actually surprised to hear H-Z commenting about the “good kids”. That was certainly poor taste for a judge.

FOX tv news is now running headlines on ‘HAPPENING NOW’, how Italian justices are at this moment considering the validity of the acquittal of Knox and Sollecito. They run these tiny visual headlines underneath the speaking news anchors. The news about Meredith’s case at Italian Supreme Court was followed by news that Prince Harry will visit the U.S. in May.

Many thanks for the updates, I too am hoping with all my might for the aquittals to be overturned; there was far too much ignored.
This may have been answered in a previous post (I have been away a while) but do we know what final alibi AK and RS settled on in their books they are releasing? Seeing as this was a huge part of their flawed defense, not being entirely sure WHERE they were, if not murdering poor Mez, then I would be interested to know what official line they are sticking with, as ‘not remembering’ is just not good enough for me.

Megyn Kelly on Fox with loud stupid remarks as she interviewed Lisa Wiehl (a Fox know-nothing spieling same old junk about Knox like she did years ago). When asked about extradition of Knox if Court annuls her acquittal, she scoffed her doubt, said, “it’s already over.”

Also asked for opinion was Mark Fuhrman (former LAPD homicide police). He is supporting the prosecution solidly because of Knox’s hand in staging a crime scene, he pounded that point across, that staging a scene always means complicity.

Fuhrman also said: “Suspects lie about what they don’t have to,” and that Knox in his opinion is “culpable regardless of the DNA.”

Megyn Kelly could not pronounce Sollecito nor Mignini’s names properly. Wiehl waved away all Knox’s forensics as simple roommate contamination. She and Kelly both seem dismayed that double jeopardy doesn’t apply, and quick to buy into the myth of Italian investigative incompetence.

Fuhrman held his ground staunchly in face of the fast talking excitable idiots around him, by this I mean Kelly and Wiehl. Fuhrman said Knox may be legally innocent but he thinks she’s factually guilty. This report was on FOX News about 5 minutes ago.

I would like to see Mark Fuhrman on this. But we don’t get FOX channel. If anyone can post this, I’d love to see him take apart Wiehl and Kelly. BTW, Wiehl was Bill O’Reilly’s (is that his name) bagwoman for many years. I don’t know if she still is.

Maybe they want to make the announcement while most of American is sleeping to avoid a huge media frenzy if they call for a retrial. I would think if they were to uphold Hellmans ruling they would just do so now.

What power do the Knoxi have now, Mignini was vindicated, Berlusconi is gone, if John Kerry’s brother had some pull in the appeal, why would Kerry as Secretary of State get involved in a potential scandal?

I, for one, feel optimistic about the delay. I mean, if the prosecution’s arguments held no water, then it should have been fairly easy to dismiss it. On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the opposite.

After all, this is a trial that has attracted considerable media attention and strong emotions from different parts of the world. Moreover, overturning the decision of another judicial body is always a delicate task and due respect needs to be given to the arguments that led to the decision in the first place(a fact that Hellman completely failed to appreciate).

The court has to weigh all arguments carefully before doing so. And the fact that they are taking so much time shows that they are weighing and considering the prosecution’s arguments seriously. If they had come with any prior judgments like Hellman, then they would have probably wrapped it up by now.

This is from one source only, as everybody in Rome seems to be at dinner. AG Riello made a number of very hard-hitting, telling points. He essentially destroyed the Hellmann-Zanetti outcome in all possible ways, and the defenses merely attempted distraction.

So it appears that the extra time is required for the judges panel to arrive at a detailed guideline for a rerun of the appeal. Hellmann and Zanetti illegally tilted the playing field in a number of different respects (with some very murky help) and Cassation doesnt want to be looking at a similar outcome a year or two down the road.

There was 100 page long recourse presenting 10 reasons, plus other points. Some of these reasons are big and sensitive to jurisprudence.

The court had heared other 8 cases overall on the same day and was late with the work of other 5 cases. The Kercher case alone took overall 6 hours of working time.

It was approaching 9pm at Rome, dinner time. The court assessed they would need thwo more hours to go through the point doing a decent work.

They need to set details of the reasoning on all points. It is easy to guess why they called it a day and let the fine work for tomorrow morning.
Italians are not anxious on the case; it was night, dinner time, after a long working day.

I am hoping the Court reconsiders the proven mixed traces of Meredith and AK in Filomena’s room… that to me says it all. Retrial is absolutely necessary.

Love and strength directed to the incredible, strong and honorable Kercher family tonight. I am unworthy since I didn’t know her personally, but I still want to say: Miss you Mez. The world is diminished by the absence of your bright physical presence, but your eternal energy is probably doing more good than we collectively could all ever realize.

Loyalty is a term missing from the dictionary of Indian politicians. You need to thank…

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